Really should have blogged about this a couple of weeks ago, but so much has been happening. However, I do want to put just a few things about The Great Cotterill & Dougherty Book Launch Party online!

On the 6th May, my best bookworld buddy Jo Cotterill and I held a joint launch party to celebrate our new publications. I was celebrating the launch of Stinkbomb & Ketchup-Face and the Great Big Story Nickers, the fifth in what's proving to be an increasingly ridiculous series.

In this one, the badgers get hold of a copy of, er, Stinkbomb & Ketchup-Face and the Great Big Story Nickers. Stinkbomb & Ketchup-Face have to foil the furry fiends, as per usual; but it's difficult to foil someone who keeps changing the story as it's happening to you!

Things are confused even further by the arrival of someone called Alfred Kendon-Furtado, who has won a competition to appear in the story...

Jo, meanwhile, was launching her fabulous A Library of Lemons, which is not at all silly and is in fact incredibly moving and heartwarming. In fact - confession time - it made me cry. More than once. Actually, it made me cry even before the story started, because on the dedication page Jo says some rather lovely things about a group of her friends, and I was extremely touched that she included me.

Now: back to the party. It was great. Jo and I talked about our books; and we sang a few songs; and our editors said some lovely things; and there was CAKE! Oh, my word, so much cake...

My daughter Cara and I worked very hard on the Stinkbomb & Ketchup-Face cakes. The bomb-shaped one (shaped like the bomb in the logo) was made with BLUEBERRY JAAAAMMM!!! while the ketchup-splat one was made with ketchup. Yes, honestly. It tasted surprisingly yummy.Meanwhile the fabulous Cake Addiction Oxford made us some fantastic lemon meringue cupcakes, and some gorgeous badgery salted caramel cupcakes, and... and now I think I'm just going to show you some photos with helpful explanatory captions where necessary.

Guests at the party included....

My lovely editor Kathy, and Karen, the wonderful designer who works with the incomparable David Tazzyman to make the books look so amazingly awesome!

The original Stinkbomb & Ketchup-Face - my marvellous and much-loved children, Noah & Cara, who came up with the names that inspired the characters.

Alfred Kendon-Furtado!!! Yes, Alfred is a real person! We really did run a competition to find someone to be a character in the new book, and Alfred won! It was lovely to meet him. Everyone at the party thought he was great, and I think Karen the designer would have taken him home if she could.

My old school-friend Robert 'Leggy' Legge, who I haven't seen in about 25 years. Robert was the guy who first convinced me I could learn the guitar... and write poetry... and write songs... and in fact, if it wasn't for him it's quite possible that I would never have become a professional writer.

All in all, it was a terrific party. Looking forward to the next one already!

If you're doing SATS at the moment, and struggling with concepts like 'modal verbs' and 'subordinating conjunctions', you have my deepest sympathies. Please remember that most people who write for a living have even less idea than you what these things are. And while they may be useful to those who study language for a living, for most of us they're not important at all.

Here's a song I wrote about it. Nicky Morgan is the government minister currently responsible for this nonsense, and Nick Gibb is her right-hand man.

If you've never heard of a book birthday - well, it's the day when your book officially comes out in the shops. And today is the book birthday of Stinkbomb & Ketchup-Face and the Great Big Story Nickers! Written by me, and illustrated as ever by the fabulous and fantastic David Tazzyman, without whom...

I'm really proud of this book. I mean, I'm proud of all my books, and I'm certainly proud of the whole Stinkbomb & Ketchup-Face series; but I'm feeling particularly proud and pleased with this one at the moment. I do honestly think I've written a very clever story.

The thing is... well, if you're a S&KF fan, you'll know that Stinkbomb and Ketchup-Face know that they're in a story. And sometimes the story sort of intrudes upon itself, like in Stinkbomb & Ketchup-Face and the Quest for the Magic Porcupine when Miss Butterworth takes a look at the library's copy of Stinkbomb & Ketchup-Face and the Quest for the Magic Porcupine so that she can advise our heroes. Or inStinkbomb & Ketchup-Face and the Bees of Stupidity, when they get a note from the writer to tell them they're in the wrong place..

In Stinkbomb & Ketchup-Face and the Great Big Story Nickers, those villainous badgersget hold of a copy of Stinkbomb & Ketchup-Face and the Great Big Story Nickers and start mucking about with it. ​And this causes difficulties - not just for Stinkbomb and Ketchup-Face, but for me, my editor Kathy, and our designer Karen. Because when characters in a story are making changes to that story - some of them quite big changes... Well, it gets complicated.

And as if that wasn't complicated enough, we held a competition. You know those competitions where the winner gets to be in a story? One of those. So there's a young chap called Alfred Kendon-Furtado who keeps popping up and adding to the complications.

But however complicated it gets, it's still an awful lot of fun. Why not get hold of a copy and see for yourself! And to get you in the mood, here's First Draft with the Stinkbomb & Ketchup-Face theme song!

Of course, I'm not the only one having a book birthday today. A glance at my Twitter feed suggests that the first Thursday in May is a very popular publication day, and some of my other author friends have new books to celebrate. I know that the new Young Bond book, Heads You Die, by the fabulous & fun Steve Cole is out today, and School for Dads by the lovely Adam & Charlotte Guillain (and illustrated by Ada Grey) is also in the shops.

But a special mention has to go to my very best author pal Jo Cotterill for her gorgeous A Library of Lemons. This is a really, really lovely and moving book about grief, friendship, and the power of books. It made me cry, in a good way. Do get yourself a copy.

Jo and I are having a book launch party tomorrow in Oxford to celebrate our new books - any librarians, writers, booksellers, reviewers etc. reading this who would like an invitation, please leave a comment to that effect. And any other author friends with a book out today - do let me know!

UPDATE:
Paula Harrison has some very shiny new books out today. And several lovely writers including Susie Day, Elen Caldecott and Sally Nicholls have a collaborative book out - 12 short stories by 12 great authors.

UPDATE 2:
Jonathan Meres is celebrating the publication of his TENTH 'World of Norm' book today!!!
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And UPDATE 3;
My lovely friend Cas Lester sees the latest of her Nixie the Bad Bad Fairy books in the shops today, too!

The first thing we did was the festival's biggest author signing! A few months ago, Jo & I went into two Chipping Norton schools - Holy Trinity and St Mary's - and talked with the Year 5 children about some ideas for stories, based on an idea by some guy called William Shakespeare. And then some of the children wrote their own stories, and they got printed up in a book which we launched on Wednesday! Here are some of the books...

...and here are Jo and me and some of the authors at the launch event.

On Thursday came a day of events in schools, featuring some brilliant authors...

I love getting books in the post. Here are the two most recent arrivals:

One is the first copy of my brand new book, Stinkbomb & Ketchup-Face and the Great Big Story Nickers!

If you're a Stinkbomb & Ketchup-Face fan, you might remember what happened in book two, Stinkbomb & Ketchup-Face and the Quest for the Magic Porcupine, when Miss Butterworth opened a copy of, er Stinkbomb & Ketchup-Face and the Quest for the Magic Porcupine. And you might have wondered: what would happen if characters less good and sensible than Miss Butterworth got hold of a copy of the book they were in.

​Well, in Stinkbomb & Ketchup-Face and the Great Big Story Nickers, our heroes are about to find out!

I'm just as excited about the second book to arrive in the post. It's another one that's not in the shops yet - my lovely friend Jo Cotterill's latest book, A Library of Lemons. I'm really looking forward to reading it, though I'm a bit worried it might make me blub. When I've read it, I'll tell you how many hankies I needed.